During the fight against Israfel, Shinji and Asuka were forced to work together to defeat it, but had to practice synchronizing before defeating it. So why is it that Hideaki Anno decided to have them paired together for something like this?

These two obviously had a rough start, which was made apparently more so towards the end of the series. And we all know that Asuka refuses to work with anybody, especially someone below her standards. I mean, they could have had Shinji paired with Rei (seeing as these two get along fairly better). And as Misato once put it, (especially in the manga chapter) they could easily pair Rei with Shinji "without a second thought".

"Who dares to summon the master of masters, the deliverer of darkness, the Shogun of sorrow, Aku!?"-Aku

Because she'd had more training than Rei; and because learning cooperation is always a valuable skill that perhaps she'd not had the chance to develop. Also perhaps to give her another opportunity to prove herself.

"Being human, having your health; that's what's important."(from: Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi )"As long as we're all living, and as long as we're all having fun, that should do it, right?"(from: The Eccentric Family )Avatar: Such an angelic fascinator you're wearing, Shinji! (details); Past avatars.Can't wait for 3.0+1.0? - try Afterwards... my post-Q Evangelion fanfic (discussion)

Misato was completely bluffing when she said she could pair Rei with Shinji. There's a reason Rei wasn't with the two of them in their initial engagement with Israfel; Unit-00 was still damaged from Operation: Yashima, and doesn't return to active status until Matarael's attack. Misato, having known Asuka for so long, was manipulating her pride.

i haven't watched the series in a long time (coming up on my bi-annual watch) but isn't Unit 00 still being repaired/getting a spiffy new paint job at that point? I remember that aside from Operation Yashima, Unit 00 was out of commission a good deal in the first third of the series.

Gendo'sPapa wrote:i haven't watched the series in a long time (coming up on my bi-annual watch) but isn't Unit 00 still being repaired/getting a spiffy new paint job at that point? I remember that aside from Operation Yashima, Unit 00 was out of commission a good deal in the first third of the series.

Yeah, I think that was deal. Unit 00 did get a new paint job when NERV attempted it's second activation test since the last time it went berserk. And it was still being repaired (damn, these EVAs take a long time to repair, probably more so than the average mechas), so Rei couldn't pilot for a while.

Back on topic, was there some special reason why Anno put them together for this sort of thing other than for them to learn the value of cooperation? Like for some sort of narrative? Because I don't think it was really for the sake of pairing these two together since we know how well that turned out towards the end.

"Who dares to summon the master of masters, the deliverer of darkness, the Shogun of sorrow, Aku!?"-Aku

Shinji: "Sooner or later I'll be betrayed... And they'll leave me. Still... I want to meet them again, because I believe my feelings at that time were real."Ryuko: "I'm gonna knock ya on your asses!"-Asuka: THINK IN GERMAN!!! -Shinji: Öh... Baumkuchen...Hayashida: "As game developers, our work is special. All of us here can put smiles on very many people's faces with our work.""In any case, it (Kill la Kill) is the greatest work of fiction ever written and should be taught in schools." -Squigsquasher~('.'~) (~'.')~ Dancin Kirby